


The Danger of Love

by AmableAngel



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, F/M, Foster Care, Hanahaki AU, Hanahaki Disease, hanahaki disease au, yooo okay its angsty but i promise it gets better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 18:23:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12894057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmableAngel/pseuds/AmableAngel
Summary: Hanahaki is defined as the disease of the unrequited love.





	The Danger of Love

**Author's Note:**

> MKAY  
> so  
> i saw a hanahaki fanart and got inspired so i was like why not make a gwenvid haahaki fic  
> so this is the result  
> (tw: blood)
> 
> enjoy my dudes!! <333  
> Comments and kudos are appreciated (especially comments :))) 
> 
> *insert usual disclaimer stuff*

Hanahaki is defined as the disease of the unrequited love. Victims will cough up flower petals drenched in blood when they are in love, a one-sided love. Left untreated, the victim will die, choking on the beauty of flowers. One route is to get a surgery, which will save the victim, but will squash any feelings that they had felt for the person. The only way to live without side effects was to have their love returned. 

~

I had noticed something was off about Gwen when she didn’t yell at me for kicking Space Kid. It was the orientation day at school, and David was busy, so he couldn’t take me and asked Gwen instead. Gwen had grumbled obligingly, and walked with me to Sleepy Peak Elementary School. We got there and Neil was already there. I had walked up to him, but Space Kid kept trying to talk to him. Naturally, I got mad and kicked him. 

As soon as I did that, I had expected Gwen to say something like, “Max! Don’t fucking kick him!” and in my head, I kinda heard David say, “Gwen! Language!” in response to Gwen. After living with him for a while, all his rules sort of stuck in my brain. But nothing. Gwen said nothing and just dragged me into the school. 

The second thing was when Gwen randomly got up and rushed to the bathroom, holding her hand over her mouth. I was confused but not concerned. I knew her period was over, since the chocolate supply in the pantry had remained stable the past couple days. But I had yelled at her not to eat all the goddamn chocolate and that I wanted some, so maybe she listened? Or not. She screamed back at me with something about ‘a fucking knife being plunged into my back and my ovaries exploding.’ So it’s up in the air. Like I said, I wasn’t concerned when Gwen went to bathroom in a hurry. It could’ve been her period. I didn’t know. 

But then the last thing was David. Those two were best friends, goddamnit. They had been through high and low and everything in between together. If anything was wrong with Gwen’s life, she’d go to David, and vice versa. 

But one night, she didn’t sit down at the dinner table and she didn’t talk to David about her day and she didn’t do the things she always did with David. She picked up her plate and walked to her room wordlessly, not making eye contact with anyone. I paid her no mind, but David looked at her with confusion. He looked at me, then back at Gwen's door, and then at the food. Doing nothing, he finished eating his pasta and went to go talk to Gwen. 

She had been living with us since about a month after Camp Campbell shut down. Out of a job, no home, and no place to go, Gwen I-am-NOT-moving-back-in-with-my-parents Santos showed up at our front step in the middle of a rainstorm. She was soaked to the bone, her clothes sticking to her skin and hair matted onto her scalp, dragging a suitcase behind her. David freaked out, brought her inside and set her down on the couch. 

I was sleeping when that happened, so I was pretty confused when I walked into the kitchen that morning and saw Gwen sitting at the table, her head slumped down against it. It was like camp all over again!

David gave up his room for Gwen, despite her insistence that she could stay on the couch. Ever since then, he’d been sleeping in front of the TV, while Gwen slept in the master bedroom. We all ate dinner together, despite my insistence that it was stupid. We all did everything together, as weird as it sounds. There was a system and we stuck to it. 

And then this happened. Gwen was acting odd. Randomly running to the bathroom, not talking to David, not sitting down with me and helping me with homework. It disrupted the daily routines and it confused me. She refused to talk to David about this and it made him so goddamn worried, he was biting his nails and shit, stuff I’d never seen him do before. 

Soon after, I was going with Gwen and her friend Jen to the library. Jen was an English major and I needed help with my project, so I asked Gwen for help (David was never very good at school) and she told me about Jen. 

So we’re sitting there in one of those private rooms, Jen’s explaining to me what a thesis is, everything she’s saying goes in one ear and out the other. All of a sudden, Gwen coughs. And when I say coughs, I mean  _ violently.  _ She was hacking her fucking lungs out with this horrible sound. It sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. Jen immediately ran to Gwen’s side, who was waving her away, hand over her mouth as she tried to stop whatever was in her throat from coming out. 

Her attempts were in vain, as blood spilled out of the cracks between her fingers and she made this terrifying vomiting sound. 

I’ll tell you something. I don’t get scared very easily. But I heard someone say, “Sometimes, the scariest things aren’t ghosts and monsters. It’s real life.” And by God, that real life thing I witnessed was the absolute most bone-chilling thing I’d ever seen. 

There was blood splattered on the floor, little dark drops on the blue carpet. It’s still funny to me that the only thing I vividly remember about that was that ugly-ass carpet dotted with blood. I do remember Gwen choking as flower petals erupted from her throat and I do remember Jen patting her on the back whilst panicking and I do remember me looking at the ground, as more and more blood came up out of Gwen and landed onto that floor. It was mesmerizing, in a way. Little specks, just increasing in number, like little raindrops.

But there was the sound too. Just the coughing and the wheezing, the sound of life being removed from the body. It seemed to drag on for ages, just repeating as Gwen coughed and hacked, thumping her chest over and over again. Flowers flowed out, beautiful things drenched in blood. In the movies, they made it look so elegant and graceful. 

Hanahaki disease. The illness of the person in an unrequited love. It was poetic, the way flowers grew out of love, but killed the lover in a bloody drowning. Well, not poetic. But that was the way it was portrayed in the movies. Camellias and canna lilies and carnations spilling out as the person died of their love. 

But the things I was seeing was the complete opposite. It was not pretty. It was not beautiful. I saw my mother figure, choking on her love, dying. That was the truth. 

Hanahaki was not cute or beautiful or romantic. It was a disease. Hanahaki  _ disease.  _ It killed people and it was killing Gwen. I just sat there, watching Jen slow her breathing and calm down as Gwen hacked up a final, blood drenched sunflower. Jen immediately pulled out Gwen’s phone to call David, but she smacked it out of Jen’s hands. 

It all made sense to ten-year old me. Gwen was in love with David. The very same David who did not love her back. Everything came together. Gwen didn’t want to talk to David. She wanted nothing with him, hoping her feelings would vanish. But without him, Gwen was not Gwen. She didn’t yell at Kevin, the mailman, when he did something stupid. She didn’t get angry when I ate the last bit of pecan pie. She didn’t watch those trashy TV shows. She was not Gwen because she had pushed David out. Gwen without David was not Gwen. 

Now, if I were telling this to you when I was ten, instead of eighteen, you’d be hearing a much different version of it. You wouldn’t hear me say Gwen was “my mother figure” because I hated Gwen back then. I thought she was a trashy college student who was a failure at life. I thought she depended on David a little too much. I thought she had made bad decisions with her life and that she was all around, a bad person. But I failed to see the nuances behind Gwen and David’s relationship. He had a bad day, Gwen brought him Ben and Jerry’s. She had a bad day, they’d sit and watch Bob Ross. They had an unspoken communication that took  _ years  _ to build up. They trusted each other in such a way that I’m unable to put into words. 

And I said before. Gwen without David is not Gwen. The same goes the other way. David without Gwen is not David. 

So guess what happened when Gwen started acting weird. Both of these adults I was living with had drawn into themselves. David no longer smiled or scolded me gently about my cursing. Gwen no longer gushed to me about the latest episode of Prison Teen Moms as I rolled my eyes. Both of them disappeared. 

But when Gwen had her episode in the library, after striking her phone to the floor out of Jen’s hands, she looked me right in the eyes. Grabbing my shoulders and peering directly into my soul, Gwen rasped out one sentence: “You tell David, I’ll murder the fuck out of you.”

Of course, me being a bratty ten-year old and blocking out whatever I just saw--Wait, I’m going off on a tangent, bear with me. I think that’s how some brains work. If they insist it didn’t happen by blocking the memory, then, to them, it didn’t happen. That’s how my kiddie brain worked. I just saw the most horrifying thing, and my first response was to pretend everything was fine. If I said it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen. 

And if it was that traumatizing to me that my initial response was to block it out, then I don’t know how bad it was for Gwen. 

Anyhow, I responded back to her, saying, “Fucking make me.” I don’t know why I said that, to be honest. Was it just my first reaction to rebel against anything that anyone said? Or was I concerned? I don’t know, actually. I should think about that later. 

Well, she got  _ so  _ mad, I could practically see her fuming at the mouth. In the background, Jen was frantically pacing around the room, trying to figure out what to do. Hanahaki was common, but it was like depression. Everyone heard about it, heard about how horrible it was, but when someone had it, it was taboo to speak about. The person was rushed to the hospital, having the flowers and the feelings removed from their chest, and then they returned home. It was never talked about again, and it was not a commonly discussed thing. Except, like I mentioned before, in the movies. 

Movies  _ loved  _ Hanahaki. Just like any type of illness, it was exploited and turned into this romantic concept. Books did that too. I just kinda accepted it, until I saw Gwen vomit carnations coated in crimson. Then it became a disease in my mind. Before, it was a flower thing that some people got when they were in love. Now, it was a killer. 

It was weird. That is, pretending nothing was wrong with Gwen when we got back home. Jen had been blocked in all her attempts to get Gwen to the hospital with a fierce denial from Gwen. She was adamant that she didn’t receive the surgery. For what reasons, I did not know. 

She was going to die if she kept going on like that, and I wasn’t sure if I could keep going like everything was normal. I had to cover for Gwen’s trips to the bathroom, pass her tissues if we were in a situation where we couldn’t go to the bathroom. All things that made me feel like an accomplice. Even though I disliked Gwen back then, I didn’t want her to die. My conscience living in my skull was pretty dead by the time I reached the age of ten, but he revived himself to whisper to me that I had to do something about Gwen. I couldn’t let her die. If I did, that was on me. It’d follow me forever. 

I laid in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, muting out the weird sounds of nighttime Sleepy Peak. I made a promise. That next morning, I’d talk to David. I’d tell him what was happening to Gwen and he’d fix it. 

He had to fix it, of course. That wasn’t even a question. David could fix anything. He fixed me, in a way. After being rotated around different foster homes, David’s was the one that stuck. He dealt with my tantrums and my cursing and my utter hatred of the world. And despite my insistence that I hated him, I really didn’t. He was my dad. A father figure. My birth dad was an asshole, a fucking douchebag who beat my mom, who in turn, beat me. I got bounced around from home to home after my mom died of a beating, prompting an investigation of my dad. He was thrown behind bars, and here I am.

Enough about me. This story is about Gwen. And David, I guess. So, I told myself to tell David about Gwen in the morning. She’d get the surgery and everything would become normal. But the morning never came, for with the midnight brought blood, flowers and an unconscious woman, lying on the bathroom floor. 

I woke up in the middle of the night to get water. I tiptoed into the kitchen and saw David missing from the couch. It was then that I saw a trail of blood and flowers going from Gwen’s room to the bathroom. The second thing I noticed was the vomiting sounds. My heart dropped into the depths of my stomach, as I rushed to the bathroom door, swinging it wide open. 

My stomach still turns whenever I think about this. I-I walked into the bathroom and the first thing was the smell. That horrid, coppery smell of blood. Back at the library, there wasn’t that much blood. It was splattered, almost sprinkled onto the floor. Most of the stuff Gwen coughed up were just flowers. But this was  _ blood _ . A whole lot of it, too. There were globs of it in the shower, in the sink, in the toilet, even. I immediately recoiled, fearing for something. Gwen’s life?  _ My  _ life? I don’t know. There’re a lot of ‘I don’t know’s in this story. 

But Gwen was coughing and wheezing with every breath slowly dying out as it reached the end. Cough-wheeeeze. Cough-wheeeeze. Over and over again as bloody flowers erupted from Gwen’s lungs. David was, obviously, freaking the fuck out. He obviously didn't see the flowers, thinking it was just blood. In response to this assumption, David thought the best course of action was to hit Gwen on the back. 

This made things worse. Gwen was in even more pain, camellias choking her as she grasped at her throat, gasping for breath. 

Neither had noticed I was there and I realized something. I had done a lot of research on Hanahaki after the library. The gasping thing Gwen was doing was the last stage of Hanahaki. The victim chokes to death, dying of asphyxiation. 

But by God, it was my fault I let Gwen get this bad, and I was going to fix it. She was writhing on the floor in pain, before finally passing out. By the looks of it, she was still breathing, but didn't have much time. 

“Max!! Help me!” David yelled out, finally taking notice of my presence. “What's wrong with her?!” 

“Hanahaki.” 

David spluttered in confusion as I ran back to the kitchen to grab the home phone. I dashed back to him and punched in 911. 

“W-what? There aren't any flowers… Oh.” He was so caught up in his worry, he failed to notice the sunflowers and daffodils lining the bathtub. 

“We have to get Gwen to the hospital.” The emergency responder picked up. “Yes, we have a person with Hanahaki disease. 7846 London Road. Suite 6. Okay.” I dropped the phone onto the carpet and knelt down next to Gwen. 

I furrowed my brow as I noticed something weird. “Who was she in love with?” David asked. “I’m going to beat them to the ground for making her like that.” His voice was dangerously low, uncharacteristically low. 

Gwen was still breathing. But she wasn’t clawing at her throat, wanting for more air. She had an even breathe in, breathe out. I scratched my head, thinking. Hanahaki disease stopped when the love was reciprocated. 

“Max. Who was she in love with?” he repeated. 

I turned to look at him. “Do you love Gwen?” It was David’s turn to look confused as he looked at me and then back to Gwen. He turned pink, tears springing to his eyes. 

“W-Well, yes. I do love her.” His voice dropped. “I’ve always loved her. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it till now…” At those words, Gwen began to stir, coughing weakly. A single flower burst out her mouth and landed on the floor with a small  _ thump.  _

A rose. The flower of love. 

 

So basically, everything was fine after that, to some extent. Gwen still had to go to the hospital, since she suffered from lung issues and loss of blood. In that time, David stuck to her side like glue. It was pretty sickening. But hey, whatever made them happy. 

I guess I was a little mad at David for being so oblivious, to the point where Gwen almost died. He just held back, unaware that his unspoken love could be killing her. But Gwen was fine with it, I think. It was a little weird. 

But they dated. And got married. 

The wedding day was, simply put, a disaster. Gwen’s mom and David’s mom-- who insisted I call her “Grandma” -- were freaking out. The makeup artist had been run off by Nurf, but thankfully, a replacement was found. That is, she was found about 45 minutes before the ceremony started. Aaand then, when everyone’s makeup was done and Nikki was supposed to walk down the aisle, throwing Hershey Kisses-- we decided not to use flower petals, for obvious reasons-- her body decided that that was about the right time for her first period to start. Candy had just assumed since Nikki hadn’t gotten her period yet, and that since she was already fourteen, Nikki wasn’t going to get her period. But,  _ boy,  _ was she wrong. So yeah, there was a huge red stain on the flower girl dress, and Gwen’s mom’s soul was gone. 

Pretty chaotic, but Nerris had an extra dress for Nikki, and then we were set to go. She and I went down the aisle, hand in hand-- David’s idea, not mine!-- me holding the rings, and Nikki chucking the Kisses at everyone. We took our places as Nikki bounced into the seat right at the front. I was supposed to be next to David, but he still hadn’t walked in yet. The rest of the wedding party filed in a few minutes later. Maria, Gwen’s little sister, was the maid of honor with Jen and Millie Ana, another friend of Gwen’s, as the bridesmaids. David walked in after them and took his place next to me. The man was nervous as hell. The previous night, he was out on the balcony, just sitting there. Gwen wasn’t there as she was staying at Jen’s house for the night. I woke up in the middle of the night and just saw him sitting there. 

“David?” I asked, sliding the door open, the wave of cool air hitting my face. Taking a seat next to him, I looked at his face. It was still. Not smiling or laughing. Just still. “David?” I repeated. 

“Max? What if I’m not good enough?” He turned to me. “What if she decides that she doesn’t love me?”

I snorted. “Hate to break it to ya, but if Gwen didn’t love you, you’d be throwing up flowers just about now.” David nodded and looked back at the moon. We didn’t talk after that. The next day, there was absolutely no time for David and I to talk, so we didn’t bring it up again. 

Cheers and whoops brought me back to the present. Gwen walked into the hall, escorted by her father. I hadn’t seen her face yet, since no guys were allowed into the dressing room, lest they sneak a peek at the bride. And right now, her face was covered by a veil. I could sense that David was itching to see her face, but he settled for fidgeting with his fingernails. And something was weird. I couldn’t place my finger on it, but it was itching at my brain. 

I was fourteen, same age as Nikki, and was not as hostile towards Gwen, obviously. But still, something was weird. 

Throughout my life, I had had three parents. My birth mom, birth dad, and David. The first two were absolute douchebags. They completely ruined my life. Then David came into the picture. He fostered me. At camp, he tried his best to make me happy. I responded negatively, obviously. He did everything to help me, but what I didn’t notice was Gwen behind him, helping him help me. She patched up his wounds, she listened as he cried about how much I hated him, she’d do everything to help me, but I never noticed it. 

David was my father, yes. But Gwen was my mother, I just didn’t realize it. The only one who had returned to me with the love of a mother was Gwen. I guess the weird thing I felt was regret? All this time, she had been trying to help David help me. But by snubbing David, I was snubbing her too. Eventually, I stopped shoving away David, but continued to do so to Gwen. I was hurting her and I didn’t know it. My own mother was a horrible person. My new mother, who I had treated horribly with the assumption that all moms were bad, had helped me. Yes, with tough love. She got angry at me and pulled her hair out because of me and got frustrated because of  _ me.  _ But Gwen Santos didn’t give up. 

Both of them. David Greene and Gwen Santos, my mother and father. The two people who never gave up on me. 

After the ceremony, there was lots of crying. I’m not saying I was one of the people crying, but, hey, it’s up in the air. Gwen’s mom was sobbing so much, they needed to bring the woman a whole box of tissues. Nikki was hugging me, with Neil rolling his eyes behind us. Nerris was so excited to see Gwen and David married, she gave them her elf ears. For good luck, she said. David just about started bawling on the spot. The rest of the campers gave their congratulations, with Preston leading them into a broken rendition of Love Me Again by John Newman. It was a catastrophe, but the newlyweds loved it.  

We went home after a few hours, after all the goodbyes, tears, and kisses. We sat down at the kitchen table for a ‘family meeting.’ Gwen looked funny, with her makeup still caked on her face but pajamas on. David looked tired.  _ I  _ was exhausted and was about to collapse. Again, something was weird. But this time, I could put my finger on it. Gwen and David looked at each other and then down to the table. It was the hallmark of a foster couple sending you back to the state home.  _ I _ should know. 

“Max. We need to talk about something,” David said softly. 

“Can’t we do it in the morning?” I whined, hoping I could push it off. I didn’t want to leave. 

“No,” Gwen said. I was about to bite back, but then I remembered my thoughts from before the ceremony began. I kept my mouth shut. 

“You’re a foster kid. You know that, right?” David asked. He looked at Gwen, who nodded her head and turned to me. My heart began to sink and my hands shook. I nodded, gulping. I was thinking,  _ This the part where they let go of me. I was wrong before. They didn’t love me.  _

“Foster kids only remain in the families until they turn eighteen. Then they’re turned loose. Adoption places the kid into the family’s hands forever, no intervention from the state.”

“I know.” I was dreading the next words, so I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping it would lessen the hurt. The seconds before Gwen spoke were agonizing. I was certain, so very certain they were sending me back to the state home. But I was wrong. 

“Would you be okay if we adopted you?” My eyes popped open and the glaring light of the kitchen bore down. “We want to make you part of our family forever. But only if you want to. It’s all up to you.” I couldn’t believe the words coming out of Gwen’s mouth. Looking to David, he was smiling. 

“W-Wha--” I cleared my throat. “Adoption would mean I would stay with you guys forever?” Gwen nodded, grinning widely. After that, I stopped thinking. I jumped out of my seat, tackling her and David with a hug. Tears were streaming down my face for the second time that day, but I didn’t care. 

I had a family and it was certain now. 

Y’know those perfect families they put in ads on TV? When we all sat down with our pasta in front of the TV to watch reruns of Full House, Gwen would always laugh at those ads, saying, “Their perfect family is a bunch of white people with their dog and cat. Our perfect family has an angry Indian kid, a useless Colombian woman, and a happy-go-lucky Canadian man.” David would just insist that Gwen had a lot of good qualities, that she wasn’t useless. She’d laugh and kiss him on the cheek. I would just scowl at the TV and eat my pasta. 

It was corny, I know. But it was my family.

My mother, Gwen Santos is the bravest woman I know. My father, David Greene, is the greatest man I know. And I, Max Santos-Greene, am proud to be called their son. 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you guys liked it!!! i really wanted to do a hanahaki fic that didn't have anyone dying at the end, and i needed practice writing happy scenes anyways so this is it :) 
> 
> comments and kudos appreciated! please comment below if you liked it! <333
> 
> okay and so if anyone wants me to, i'll make second, more angsty part 2. Someone might die in that one, for all you angst loving dudes :)


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